Deroy Murdock: The Lame-Duck Session Should Sprain Trump’s Wrist

[Machiavelli]

Deroy Murdock
National Review
November 9, 2018

"It’s about stopping the GOP,” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said on election night. Voters turned her minority into a majority Tuesday evening. But Democrats do not get their hands on the lower body until January 3, which lets Republicans write this story’s final chapter.

Democrats will stop the GOP. Pelosi, or whoever becomes speaker, will convert the House into a giant rubber stamp that says, “HELL NO!” Aside from an infrastructure bill, anything that slips past filibustering Democrats and passes the GOP Senate will be machine-gunned the second it reaches the House. The Trump/GOP legislative agenda, as such, dies in two months. Instead, the Democratic House will launch big-government measures (even if they sink in the Senate), probe every curve of the Trump administration, and possibly impeach President Donald J. Trump for the high crime of defeating Hillary Clinton two years ago this week. He crushed the Duchess of Chappaqua’s dreams. And for that, he must suffer the stain of impeachment, even though there is zero chance that 67 senators would vote to convict him...

Republicans should use their remaining power until 2019. Democrats will scream, but they always do. Republicans must resist the foolish temptation to “be nice” to Democrats, in hopes that they will return the favor. They won’t.

Instead, Republicans should vote, vote, vote relentlessly until January 3, with just a day or two off for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas. They should litter President Trump’s desk with bills that enhance individual freedom, fortify national security, limit government, and unleash markets. Come 2019, President Trump will have little if anything to sign. Until then, congressional Republicans should give Trump a sprained wrist from signing a pile of beautiful bills.

Read the whole thing.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor of National Review Online.

[Bigun]

Never happen with the current leadership in charge of the House!

[Jazzhead]

I'd love to see it.  Let's hope these lame ducks can sprint!

I'm not so sure, though, that the new Congress will prove to be a rubber stamp of "HELL NO".   The biggest losers last Tuesday were progressives, to be sure - from Karen Porter in Cali to Richard Cordray in Ohio, from Gillum in Florida to Beto in Texas,  hard left progressives mostly lost.    It was Democrat centrists who won.

And that's why the second biggest losers last Tuesday were conservatives.   Conservative policy reform effectively shuts down beginning next year.   But Trump is no conservative,  he's a deal maker.  And if deals are to be made with the new House, he will make them.   From infrastructure to trimming the corporate tax cuts to bolstering the ACA markets  to relief for the Dreamers - does anyone really think Trump will stick to conservative principles if there are deals to be made?   

The Dems aren't as stupid as many here think they are.   There will be anti-Trump grandstanding, but, with an eye to 2020,  they will not be satisfied with obstruction and gridlock.   They will try to cast themselves as can-do legislators,   and the new cast of Dem representatives,  while beholden to party leadership to be sure,  will likely reach out to the like-minded and attempt to form coalitions that can advance legislation.   And it won't be the Senate that decides whether that legislation gets passed - it will be Donald Trump.   Trump wants his legacy, and that means working with conservatives when conservatives are in power, and with anyone else when they're not.   If there's anything that history tells us about Donald Trump, it's that he can turn on a dime.    From pro-choice to pro-life and back again.   Watch and see.